Status Updates From A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

"I go in. Is there any chair for me? No one.
Holy sitting next to thee. And I. Excuse me. Move out of my way I'm. My brother. I get there. That one. Give me his chair. Thanks she says to him. I say nothing. Don't dare look at me."

"Oh my God I'm heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell but most of all because they offended thee my God who are all good and deserving of all my love I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to confess my sins to do penance and to amend my life.
Life. Death. Amend your death. Amen."

"Close the door and doorbell rings. She bustles to it. Come the holy holy holy things. What? Mammy. Not. Come in come in. No no not today not not them. The district nurse came and said. Today. So I have gathered my friends in. Help him on his. My boy my little boy. It's not right he won't like. All these strangers it's not for gawking Mammy it's not a show please please. I'm asking. Please send them away. No."

"Hello morning my love. And kiss your face. That's warm. And hard with sleep to the touch. Closed. I know what today is even if you're unaware. I know you'd tell me if you could say. Today. Is the day you'll die. You're going off to leave me and I. I wish you would. I wish you'd learn your lesson and still come back. Wish you. Fuck you. Open your eyes. Please. And you.

Do you see me this time this day? I see you."

"At night I dream. Always. God is. Give me unquiet dreams. When the world. That. I dream. I see the plains of the sea, turning over. Tar. Black as. Black as.

In the hills above Glen stop. Don't. Stop it now. Wake up. I wake. My eyes shut. Run. From a world more full of weeping than you can understand."

"I'll sit with you instead. And when the kettle's boiled I toilet roll your face. Pressured blood pressure going. Yours then mine. I clean the oil from your skin sore red and tired. For what need? You're more perfect than you were before. I'll wash your face of sacrament. Let sin to sinner return. Like me--for I know it very well."

"...To fortify your soul I. Remitting all your venial sins. Cleans your, what's it here, your soul. And restore your health if God sees fit. I pray I pray I pray I pray. For. Him to go. For you. You will not know what this priest's done. What cross mean. What oil. What stink where you have been sanctified."

"...Your eyes and ears. Your lids clappers shut. Don't wake I pray into my fingertips. Oil on your nose and lips. Sign of the cross and. Spread his hands there. That's the way and draw the cross again. Again. On your palms where you have sinned. And feet. There. All the oil stops the devil getting in. Out. Places where the sins come in. He says this is to comfort you in your mortal pain..."

"Shush. Aunt saying. The priest is in. Why? To give your brother the sacrament of the sick. She lay the white cloth down. She put candlesticks and candles in. Twig of palm in holy water. Napkin stuck there under your chin. Wake up there son. Wake him. Put his chasuble on. Kiss thus bit. Kiss the end. He wash his fingers. Do you renounce Satan and all his ways? Oil on his thumbs. Draw the cross on you..."

"I walk a long way off. Get out of here. From you. Feel I could clean my head with a. View of mountains. With a view. Where God is looking in he isn't if he was. He wouldn't do. He wouldn't do. Where's the air out here?"

"She sits by your bed saying you, say you're sorry for all the things you done. Aren't you? When you were. My little boy. When you were bold to me. To me. Leave him. Mammy, does it matter? He must die without sin. I. He couldn't sin if he wanted. What does is matter anyway? Wake up son. Mammy. Leave him. He's going to die. My son. I won't let him in a state of sin."

"I feel the lights but I'm going lie down by your bed. I won't be stuck up. Anything I. Want to hold your hand and let them what they do I. Understand the end's the end. I can. Have you now. There is so little time.
Hey, do you know me? I pinch I pinch. I say. Do you know me? Wake up. Please.
Please. Do you know me? I know you. Good. You know all those things I did? No. Your eyes rolling. You do, I'm sorry for it."

"New days. Sometime. I'm. Forgotten what the past. And the doorbell rings and I answer the phone and the world's filled with people always doing something wrong like saying where you'll bury him, you know when he's gone? What? Well will it be a car trip or up the road. I know he hasn't long and I need to book the time off work. I. Don't know. But I laugh like I'm shot. Bang. Spray me about."

"Going in the nappy. Rage. Not fair. Not fair.
Turn and you are back asleep. I. Know I lift the cover. Clean up. And now you're gone fast far. Breathing. Don't see me. Don't know I do. New one. Clean you. Put it in the bin. See. My one act. I might be a person. Beneath the. Where horrible can be a good act of contrition. Shush there. You there sleeping. My My brother. Wish my eyes for yours tooth for your tooth."

"Your temper that's the devil up. Normal almost sight again. Pull the bed but melt like water. Gone to hell. All your muscles. You'd give me a hit but can't. I. There. Lie back. Lie back. Lie back. You have to. Don't do this you say.
Don't. You have to. And I turn away. I say. Just go don't worry it's. Normal now. It's fine. You. Strapped up in your body. You don't live there. I. Don't look. I hear you. Crying."

"Tonight I sit with you. It's. It's fine. I. Secret in the whole house sleeping I am. Awake. And you are mine in the breathing. That breathing in and out remembers lost or quiet things you always wanted. Yes I remember those things too. Don't you like me bear here doing things for you? When you breathe I know what you reply. Yes the. That's the."

"He says you want the toilet. Twenty times last night. I could not lift him he says. The steroids filled him all up. You. Like a balloon. Too heavy for carrying.

You know what. What's now. No. No. He wouldn't want. No. Yes. It's past time for it.
Nappies now. For you. Sorry. The nurse teach me and she. We'll do it. No one else will. For we're the secret flesh and blood. You won't mind us.
You will."

"She sits with you. That night I hear. Hail holy queen hail our life our sweetness and our hope to thee do we fly poor banished children. Of Eve. And in the morning. She is there. Cross her legs with her book down. Rosary wound like rope. Pulling in her skin going white til blue."

"Will you have a little something? You there. Can't hold your fork. Hold your knife. I cut. I say. For you. Open wide now let me put it in. And you won't smile and you won't chew. Please eat it. And it will do you good. She sit and says I will. Let me. She. Go on please. No. You won't though. No more eating for you."

"When doctors come to visit saying. How's his back? How's his sores? Is he sleeping? Can you wake him up please? I can't I know. He won't. You won't. They shake. He's deepest deepest. Only when he wants to. Wake up. Anymore.

I can't wash myself clean. I cannot was my hair my. I tie the long bit back. I lie on beds I stare and watch islands by in the clouds of up.
Where you are going. Soon.
And when you're gone."

"I night watch you this night. I sit. Hands under your head and say drink this. And swim your eyes around your head. Thanks for. That I. It's alright my love go to sleep.
I sit. These tick tock hours moving night across the ocean. Moving night across the sky. You moving once in a while."

"Mange organs. Tangle pain with us. The working earth. Grown through. Pin us into soil. Grow life around and choke the air. Claw us. Snare us. Grow through our hearts. Working through our lungs and brains and we fight and we howl. To silent. No more. Rot in the deep. Turning into stone. Dust we we were. Dust return.

Troubleless in our deep."

"Roots come growing. Slowly and tangle in. And roots come more. And fat and thick. And roots come fast. Roots fast in. Roots seek us. Catch us. Roots that want our head. Our eyes. We move about. The trees will have us. Have our brains for. The trees will have us. Roots growing in the bursting through our skulls. Through our brains. Seeking out our noses. Seeking out our eyes for. Strangle. Choking out the air."

"I dream of creeping under. I dream of underground where the warm earth is where the fire goes. Where we're sleep creep you and me in holes. In burrows rabbits safe from rain.
Roots growing caverns round our heads. And blind as mice popped our new and cling and soft bright pink skin. Who's there? There's no one. You and only me. We sing.
We lilt our chamber. No one comings And we lie. A thousand years of sleep."

"Her whisper saying tell me when? She doctor saying slow. No more months. Maybe weeks. One or two. Not any more. He's sleeping. Getting incoherent now. He could have a stroke or just go.
My son my son. My child my baby my boy my boy. I. There. And I am. She puts her hands on me. She puts her arms around me. Oh my little. My boy my boy. My mother. Feel the. Strange and I am comfort there. I am the. Right. This time."

"I'm sorry to you for this dying and all the things I've done.
Oh no oh no oh don't do that or say those things that are no matter anymore. Don't be sorry to me.
I want to. Don't.
I say
Shush silent night.
Fill the air out. Stop the. The coming in. And your hand on it. Down on my hair. You're crying and I am.
There there,
You are saying to me.
Death falling through the room, sucking all the words from air for us."

"And you. Filled up your bluest eye that fill and fill. Begin to cry. I'm going to die then. Now. I'm going to die.
Yes. Is there anything you want anyone to do? No.
Is there anything that you'd like to?
Say sorry.
What?
You. Filling all our hands with tears.
I am sorry to my mother and I'm sorry to my sister.
And you held my hand. Though you could hardly could. I wish Don't say it but you do."

"... And then silence here. Waiting. Swallow ocean. Waiting for. This is a moment when I want most to be dead. Face into the water or lying on the bank. Not around for this. Coming here. This sunny afternoon. This. When you say it.
When am I going to get well?
She says. You're not. I'm sorry to
Am I
this silent moment you say, Am I going to die?
You are...
Sooner or later doctor?
Sooner. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

"And how does it feel? Your head? Nothing I don't think anything's up there. Nosebleeds? Headaches? Vision getting blurred? No. When I get better.
Sssssss that fills me so I get worse. How do you think you are yourself? she asks. I, you say. Haven't I? Haven't you what? Cancer somehow in there. I clamp. You do, I'm very sorry to say she says. Will I give it to my children when I grow up? You won't. That's good..."